Thousands of apartments will get on the market, expects developer Petchenko
Can’t you initially avoid the question of how you experience the war in your home country?
I learned about the war by calling her mother-in-law on the morning of February 24. She lived in the Cherkasy region, where the radar station was hit. That’s how it started. You watch the news, at first you don’t believe it, I was shocked for a few days, I couldn’t solve anything but the war. The couple are now married in the Czech Republic. My parents have been living here for over a year. Two days after the war broke out, we began to help. For example, the former hotel we own on Kubánské náměstí in Vršovice was available to refugees. But I don’t want to talk about that help, of course you’re trying to do something. At the same time, it now spreads its time optimally between business and events in Ukraine.
I remember your interview last year for the Euro weekly, in which you tried not to see the situation in the Donbas area in black and white. That must have changed now.
Solidarity with the Ukrainians is huge today. I come from Kherson, which is such a border town. We have always reported to Ukraine, but most people in the area spoke Russian. At the time, when I described the situation there, I assumed that if people are wrong, they are for every change. They believe that change can bring them something. Now, as I look at how the Russian media is distorting the information, I say to myself that even the change that took place at that time was brought about artificially and under duress. Resources usually do not change over time. If the Russians are able to use weapons and attack in this way, then what should we think about the events that took place in 2014.
Gartal is a Czech company with Ukrainian-Belarusian roots. It was not ruled out that the paths of investors from various post-Soviet countries intertwined here in business.
For me, there were never any differences in business, whether you were of Ukrainian or Belarusian origin, and in fact they are not. We met my partner Andrej Zaitsev at university, he is more Czech than Belarus. He graduated from high school here and slowly did not even speak Russian. I’ve been in the Czech Republic since I was 16, I didn’t live in Ukraine as an adult. So, in our case, I would not be talking about connecting investors from post-Soviet countries. We entered the business here, based on our knowledge of Czech realities.
At one time, the Czech Republic was quite open to foreigners, obtaining permanent residence was easier than in other countries. These people then invested in apartments or projects. Gartal started as a developer, when the global financial crisis came, we changed the business model to a real estate agency. We tried to sell apartments to other developers who had no contacts to the East or did not have sufficient experience with this market. When the real estate market started to grow again, we returned to development. Our development was mainly due to the economic cycle and the current market situation.
You have different financial investors, you value money. You certainly have capital from Russia.
we don’t.
Do not say that there is no one with Russian roots among your investors.
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